re: Obama Rejects Republicans Fiscal Cliff Counter-Offer

quote:The wealthy got the largest benefits from the past decade of rate cuts. Now letting the cuts expire for them seems reasonable IMO. This board disagrees, but this board is not always too bright.

Fine but raising taxes on the eee'ville wich is going to amount to a manicure($70-80 billion) in solving the immediate $1,100,000,000,000 PLUS federal budget deficits we will be running our country will be running for MANY years to come.

We are still going to be in a HUGE hole. You can come on here and rattle off 'yeah I am for entitlement reform' but it hasn't happened, YET. Austerity measures are right around the corner. The Euros are having to face that now. We are next.

BTW, I am sure Ruskie can do the math on every percentange point that the interest rates go up, will have on the yeild that US Treasuries will have to pay out on our $16,000,000,000,000.00 federal debt.

quote:The wealthy got the largest benefits from the past decade of rate cuts. Now letting the cuts expire for them seems reasonable IMO. This board disagrees, but this board is not always too bright.

Taxes (surcharges) already going up next year anyway. Why should the republicans simply slink away and allow them to go up more. The democrats have the simplicity and stupidity of many citizens and the media but that doesn't make them right.

Personally I hope we go the brimstone and fire route to get all the pain out of the way before I'm 50.

quote:The problem is that small businesses are taxed at the individual rate. Why is Obama intent on taxing the very businesses that are actually employing people right now?

Most logical quote of the year. Obama is a lying POS that is acting like a partisan hack and I don't think he will fool all this time. The trick is he won so he will continue destroying our country and no one can dare question his vote fraud or anything else he says; or they are racist. We are living in some messed up times.

quote:Of course. But no one can explain why rates have to go up vs simply limiting deductions for the wealthy.

The Obama position is that capping deductions has to be done on a graded scale, and that will net 460 billion or so in additional revenue over ten years. So that plus tax rates nets 1.6 trillion over ten years. Then there's the liberal-happy spending cuts (mostly, allowing medicare to negotiate for drug prices the same way medicaid does).

Why is this the only spending cut Obama offered? It's not because he's perverse, but rather because he wants republicans to initiate proposals his electorate doesn't like.

Ok, now the republicans have done what they're supposed to do in a negotiation--offer the revenue raising they want, plus the spending cuts liberals do not want.

If Republicans can accept some form of marginal rate increase, Obama will give them some portion of the spending cuts (I haven't looked at the details of the republican proposal so I can't guess which yet. But my guess is the final result will be something like 1-1.5 trillion on the revenue side, and 2-3 trillion on the spending ct side.

quote:Why even put this out there? Obama has only said about 500 times he would oppose any measure which didn't include a tax increase on the top 2% and the Dems said yesterday nothing that did not raise rates on the top 2% would even be considered.

Here is the bottom line and time to quit wasting time:

Either the GOP agrees to raise rates on the top 2% or we go over the fiscal cliff. Period.

And the majority of the country WILL blame the GOP if they refuse a tax hike on the top 2% which WILL lead to a GOP bloodbath in the mid-term elections after another relatively serious recession next year.

so basically...no compromise. either the Dems get what they want or we go off the cliff. nice

Boehnhead should pass a plan that caps deductions for the top 1% (which raises more revenue than just hiking the rates, as the latter simply means a little extra work for the accountants.) On the spending side, cut defense, the War on Drugs, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Department of Commerce. Extend all of the BTC rates for two more years.

That plan is a lib's wet dream. Let Ogump have it, and in two years when it doesn't solve the problem, come back and say "We did it their way. Now it's time to try something different."

quote:Independent analysts who have looked at plans like this one have concluded that middle class taxes will have to go up to pay for profligate spending of Congress

To blame tax increases on "the rich" is stupid demogoguery. "The rich" already pay a far, far disproportionate share of the taxes. To suggest otherwise is dishonest. To suggest they wouldn't still pay a disproportionate share of the taxes after any plan that's been offered by the Republicans is even more dishonest.

quote:Why even put this out there? Obama has only said about 500 times he would oppose any measure which didn't include a tax increase on the top 2% and the Dems said yesterday nothing that did not raise rates on the top 2% would even be considered.